A teen followed a chatbot's hiking route and needed a helicopter rescue

What happened

Last week, a 16-year-old took a gondola up Grouse Mountain in British Columbia, Canada, and asked the chatbot Claude to plan a route to nearby Crown Mountain and back. The Guardian reports that Claude's directions took him away from his planned course, to the base of a cliff that needs ropes and climbing gear. He got stuck, phoned his mother, then called emergency services. Rescuers lowered two team members from a helicopter to lift him out.

What's actually going on

A chatbot like Claude writes answers by predicting which words should come next, based on the huge amount of text it learned from. When you ask it for a hiking route, it isn't looking at the mountain. It's piecing together what it has read about trails, place names and directions. As Paul Markey, a search manager with the rescue team, put it, Claude "has never been in the area" and "can only go so far" in describing it.

That's why a chatbot can be decent at the big picture, like which peaks sit near each other or what gear hikers usually bring. But a safe mountain route depends on small details: which fork to take, which gully, where a slope turns into a cliff. Those details are exactly where a chatbot can go wrong. And it often sounds just as sure when it's wrong as when it's right. People in tech call a confident wrong answer a hallucination. The source doesn't say exactly what Claude told this teen.

Map apps have their own version of the problem. In July, three people were rescued on another trail after Google Maps suggested a route that often takes as long as 14 hours could be done in just over five, the Guardian reports. Markey also says some apps show trails that rescuers would rather not see marked, and people mistake them for good paths. His advice: don't blindly rely on these tools for route planning, and learn to use a map and compass.

In your life

If you hike, a chatbot is probably fine for brainstorming, like which trails are near you. For the actual route, I'd use an official trail map or guidebook, check the expected time with local sources, and tell someone where you're going.

Be careful about

Chatbots can't see the ground, and they can give wrong directions in a confident voice. One wrong turn on a mountain can put you on terrain you aren't ready for. Markey says this teen was well equipped for hiking, but not for rock climbing.

Where to get it

There's nothing to get here. One small, useful step: before your next hike, look up a local map and compass class, which is the training Markey says has no substitute.